The Motions
by Elphabatizing
Summary: PostGrave Danger, but with a twist and a dash of AU. In other words, there's a character death, and after Grave Danger, I'm sure you can put together who it is. Angst galore... eventual CW, some GC friendship, and a bit of GeekLove. WIP
1. The End of the Beginning

His fingers grazed the clay poker chip, dwelling on the ominous "$100" engraved on it – his last chip, and it suddenly occurred to him that everything had spiraled out of place, but to even begin picking up the pieces meant that he needed to pick himself up too… something he simply didn't have the energy to do anymore.

What others had called an addiction before had become much more than that: the need to gamble pumped through his veins, propelling his heart into that manic, adrenaline-induced beating that only baseball players felt the moment their bats hit the ball.

Around him, eyes rested on the gaze that, over a course of a month, had acquired a slight glaze of apathy, bitterness, and a whole slew of emotions that should never be afflicted on one person. The other players were inwardly laughing at the man, partly in greed, but mostly in pity: every bet was large and obviously not very well calculated, according to the poor hands that he presented round after round.

How the hell had he gotten here...

**one month earlier**

He hit something. Spade over spade, panicked movements removed the dirt from the top of the plexi-glass case. Then he saw Nick's face: his swollen, immobile face that catalyzed the beginning of every CSI's nightmares.

Warrick wouldn't believe it. He pounded on top of the case – nobody dared to call it a coffin, even if that was what it was, in fear of karma's sick sense of humour – shouting at the top of his lungs, "Nick! Nick! We're here! Nick! Come on, buddy!" Until somebody's strong arms pulled him off so that he found himself sitting helplessly on the dirt.

They pulled the limp body out; paramedics immediately started their work on him. Everything was moving in slow motion: two hands pressed upon the chest… pump, pump. No response. Someone else had his mouth enclosing Nick's, but like a broken balloon, air went in and promptly came out. More pumping. More breath. An injection here, the defibrillator there, all in a stream of hope cut off by a dam.

Grissom stood close by, monitoring the actions while the rest of the team let the paramedics attempt their lost miracle by standing on the side, clutching one another in sharp anticipation.

A shake of a head, and it was all suddenly over.

Screams and yells rang out, all of them overlapping each other as if the agony would be easier if the sound waves could be spread out so that others could feel their immense pain. Warrick wasn't aware of his own actions, and only when he felt the hot tears streaming into his open mouth did he realize that the graspy, torn voice was his own. He pounded the dirt ground with his fists in a mish-mash of anger and grief. Then, a pair of thin arms, struggling to provide a futile comfort, wrapped around his back. Through his own sobs, he could hear recognizable, higher pitched, more eratic ones. Their bodies shook together, attempting to expel the sadness into the earth, determined to grieve until they either tired out or died themselves.

Sara and Greg held onto each other, each of their tears silently soaking the other's neck. Any inhibitions about showing emotion in public were thrown to the wind; their shallow breaths were their last attempts at being stoic about the situation, with a petty refusal to succumb to the gasping that often inflicted the mourning.

Grissom stood, isolated and in a shock that sickeningly mirrored the stillness of Nick's expression. For several moments, he'd forgotten to breathe, then he felt slightly light-headed so that he found himself sitting down right next to the body of the CSI. Grissom hadn't cried in so long that he'd forgotten how to, and though he wanted to share in the rippling emotion of his team, he was nevertheless foisted into his own realm of guilt and sadness that could only be bottled in such a way that it caused him a physical pain in his chest.

Several hours later, they sat together in the dirt, lined up against a couple of youthful trees. Nobody found any words appropriate to be spoken, so silence reigned the air as a brilliant sun peeked over the horizon, providing a bittersweet reminder of things to come.


	2. The Bleeding Stone

Even though the city seemed to heave great sighs and condolences for Nick, the crime stopped for nobody. The team was given a week off in order to recuperate from the ordeal, but Catherine felt as if going to work no longer held the joy it used to. She used to revel in the puzzle-solving, the idea of giving her hand to justice was satisfying, but all the usual routines, lab work and evidence collecting had become tedious tasks. Worst of all, her job was a constant reminder of Nick, and by twisted association, she found that frequent thoughts about her own brushes with deviants crept up into her psyche when she least expected it.

She handed the leftovers of her case to one of the temporary, substitute criminalists that the city brought in for the special circumstance. Normally, Catherine was wary of patronizing and would have been adamant about refusing special treatment or anybody's implication of her possible weaknesses, but she welcomed the extra help with open arms.

Walking past the locker room, she saw Warrick sitting solemnly on the bench, haphazardly shoving a shirt into his messenger bag. He glanced up at her as she took a seat next to him.

"Leaving early too?" She tried to keep the mood a little bit lighter.

"Mm-hmm." The man had been increasingly non-communicative, which worried Catherine.

"Do you wanna grab dinner or something together?"

"I've got plans."

"Player's gotta date, I see," she said jokingly, which made her realize how foreign the humour felt.

Warrick scowled at her, "Cath, just stop it, okay? I'm not in the mood."

She was silenced by his snapping and was struck dumbfounded while he continued to aggressively attempt to put his now-very-wrinkled shirt into his bag. Finally, in frustration, he threw the bag against the locker, resumed his seat on the bench and put his head in his hands.

Catherine gently put a hand on his shoulder, "Warrick, look at me." In response, he didn't move for several moments, but then quickly looked at her and turned away. What Catherine saw, or rather, what she didn't see, made her inwardly gasp at the shade of dark grey that his eyes had taken.

He stood up in a haste, grabbed his bag with the shirt half-stuffed into it and left, muttering, "I've gotta go."

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In the break room, Sara had fallen asleep with her head on the table. Grissom walked in and shook her softly, "Sara? Sara… why don't you go home?"

She slowly lifted her head, revealing red, puffy eyes – she'd been crying in her sleep again. A rush of shame shifted within her, having been so unabashedly emotional in front of Gil Grissom, who rarely knew what to say or do with her. Later, in reminiscence, or in the less joyful act of simple remembrance, she would laugh a little bit at the idea that they only seemed to be brought together through unfortunate circumstances.

"No, I'm… I'm okay. I have to go back to the lab," Sara stood up to empty her coffee into the sink.

"You and I both know that you can't do your best forensic work when you're half asleep and obviously thinking about other things," he was standing in front her, almost too closely, as his only able gesture of showing her that he cared.

"Grissom, I'm fine. I swear…" Her voice turned into a whisper that she could barely choke out, "I need to work. Please at least let me have that," Sara's eyes refused to meet her boss's, the man who she often wished would save her from the world, or perhaps most importantly, from herself.

On the other hand, he stood there in a state of minor shock, unsure of how to reply to her words that implied that he had previously denied her of some unknown pleasure. There was, and had always been, a muted silence between the two of them; the words wanted to desperately come out, but neither person provided an appropriate channel. Grissom desperately wanted to offer some sort of reassurance, some form of happiness that Sara could perhaps cling onto, but he couldn't guarantee anything – he was barely holding onto the seams of his own life.

They stood, facing each other for quite a while, neither of them sure of how to proceed. Finally, Sara looked up at him, gave him a forlorn smile that had obviously been forced out for his sake, and walked out of the break room.

Grissom returned to his office. Upon finding that all of his paperwork had been completed in an earlier working frenzy, he started on the pile of "Entomology Weekly" magazines. He stared at the pages, but the words on the page had been transformed into the screen on which his thoughts were projected. The diagram of Scutigera coleoptrata, the house centipede, was suddenly a dark mahogany coffin being lowered into plot 257 at the St. Ignatius Cemetery off of Palm Road.

When he looked up again, Catherine was sitting in front of him, "Geez, Gil, I've been sitting here waiting for you to notice. I knew bugs were interesting, but this is a little bit ridiculous." When he didn't reply, she softened her tone, "How many hours have you slept lately?"

Raccoon eyes had been an epidemic with the graveyard shift, each of them seemingly carrying their respective baggage under their eyes.

"Not many."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"I don't know what you want from me, Catherine."

She lunged towards him slightly, and spoke with a hushed anger, "Okay, obviously, things are not okay. Things have not been okay, and it doesn't look like they'll be alright anytime soon. _I _ need to talk, Gil. Everyone around here holes up their emotions as if we're all not going through the same damn thing." Tears of frustration glossed over her eyes.

He was silent for a few moments, but their long-standing friendship had erased any inhibitions that he might have had with someone else; "Look... people deal with the grief their own way. If they can't, then we have that therapist on payroll for a good…"

"Ugh, no! Why do you have to deal with this… this thing, like it's not affecting the people right in front of your eyes? 'They' this, 'they' that. It's we, Gil, _we_ are going through this. Jesus, will you please stop this robotic act of yours and just… I don't know, cry a little? Would it embarrass you that much? Do you not owe at least a few tears for him?" Her voice was increasingly loudening.

Grissom replied with a similar temper, "It's not about embarrassment, Catherine. And how dare you try to heave this guilt trip on me. You know how I'm dealing? By working. Working so that I can pretend that the system didn't fail us!"

He was shouting so loud that he could see the other employees swivel their heads to catch wind of the commotion through the open-blinded windows. The others quickly turned away when he caught them staring. Once again, silence prevailed; it was becoming the champion of all the battles that were fought.

Catherine brought her glance to the floor, letting her tears fall onto the linoleum. When she felt Grissom come around the desk towards her, she stood up, "I'm sorry. I just… it's…" She began to sob another countless sob. A wall in Grissom's demeanor came down just enough to invite her into his arms.

She wondered when the tears would dry up permanently.

He wondered when he would stop being the rock he helplessly was.


End file.
